Olusegun Adeniyi I moderated a ‘fireside chat’ with former President Olusegun Obasanjo at the 70th birthday ceremony of Professor Bart Nnaji last Friday in Enugu. Nnaji is easily one of Nigeria’s foremost thinkers. But beyond the glitz and glamour at the occasion, the real highlight of his birthday was the competition he had set in motion ahead of the big day. Having noticed that the tribe of palm wine tappers were fast disappearing from his village, Nnaji—who loves the local alcoholic drink derived straight from nature—dared those bold enough to solve a problem that most of us have accepted for generations: How do we get wine out of the palm tree without putting a man’s life in the balance? It is one of those almost too ordinary dilemmas until you stop to think about it. Before palm wine reaches a calabash or bottle, somebody has almost certainly gone up a tree that can tower thirty, forty, or even sixty feet tall, with nothing more than a rope, bare feet, and suicidal nerve. It is a vocation that has injured and killed tappers for as long as anyone can remember. And it is also one that is going extinct. But having spent most of his career life in the laboratory, solving big problems, Nnaji has looked at this palm wine conundrum the way an engineer looks at everything: a design failure waiting for a fix. Why should harvesting palm wine still require a man struggling to defy the law of gravity? In May this year, the ‘Bart Nnaji Innovation Challenge’ asked Nigeria’s engineers and backyard inventors for one thing: “Design a safe way to harvest palm wine without climbing trees. If you have an idea that blends creativity, engineering, practical thinking, and real-world impact, this is your shot.” By the time the winners were announced in Enugu last Friday, the competition had already made its point. Two men (Anthony Mbadiwe and Stephen Awotundun) shared the grand prize of N10 million, while a woman (Favour Ojowundu) received the runner-up award of N2 million. According to the Dean Emeritus, Graduate School of Engineering and Management at the USA Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT), Dayton, Ohio, Professor Adedeji Badiru, who chaired the committee, there were 393 entries. Meanwhile, it is quite evident that Nnaji, like all modern thinkers, is not just interested in the theory of extracting palm wine without stress, there is a rewarding catch somewhere. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself. Chaired by President Obasanjo, other notable Nigerians at Nnaji’s birthday celebration included the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, who delivered the keynote speech that highlighted what Nnaji had to go through with the Aba power project and his own intervention, first as First Bank Managing Director and later as Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor. Also in attendance were former Anambra State Governor, Mr Peter Obi as well as the Governor of Enugu, Mr Peter Mbah and his Abia counterpart, Dr Alex Otti. My friends, Tonye Cole and C. Don Adunuba were also among hundreds of other distinguished personalities from the business community, politics and the academia, including Dr Okey Ndibe, who reviewed the book, ‘Bart Nnaji: The Challenge of Facing the Future’, authored by Uzor Maxim Uzoatu. And the documentary, put together by Nnaji’s wife, Agatha, (a head turner in her days as Director of Sales for Abuja Sheraton Hotels in the early nineties when I was a young reporter), was simply brilliant. “In the laboratory, everything is logical,” Nnaji said while explaining engineering. “If your mathematics is correct, the machine works.” But Nigeria, as I surmised in my interesting conversation with President Obasanjo at the session, does not work that way! And the trajectory of Nnaji’s company provides an eloquent testimony to that. In his appreciation remarks, Nnaji alluded to the story of Red Bull as an inspiration for trying to “transform a traditional, high-risk practice” of palm wine tapping “into a safer, smarter, and more scalable enterprise.” That is not surprising. In her piece, ‘The Electrifying Story Behind Red Bull: A Global Phenomenon Rooted in an Unexpected Past’, freelance writer and content creator, Katie Wilde described how the energy drink came about as “a tale rooted in an entirely different culture, a unique blend of serendipity and marketing genius.” It all started in 1982 when, during a trip to Thailand, an Austrian businessman, Dietrich Mateschitz, reportedly tried a local drink called ‘Krating Daeng’ after he was told it would revitalise him. A marketing executive for a German toothpaste company at the time, Mateschitz was astonished by the efficacy of the drink. Having seen a huge business potential, Mateschitz approached the proprietor, Chaleo Yoovidhya (son of Chinese immigrants) with the idea of adapting and marketing the drink to a global audience. Two years later, a deal was reached for a repackaged product with each partner hol
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